traveller who passed through the Hebrides in the year 1786 recorded that in many houses he was given the room to sleep in which had been occupied by Dr. Johnson.[1] Twenty-eight years later, when Sir Walter Scott with some of his friends landed in Skye, it was found on inquiry that the first thought which had come into each man’s mind was of Johnson’s Latin Ode to Mrs. Thrale.[2] The Highlanders at Dunvegan, Scott goes on to say, saw that about Johnson there was something worthy of respect, “they could not tell what, and long spoke of him as the Sassenach mohr, or big Englishman.”[3] He still lives among them, mainly, no doubt, by his own and Boswell’s books, but partly also by tradition. Very few of the houses remain where he visited. Nevertheless, in two of these in the Hebrides, and in one in the Lowlands, I was shown his bedroom. Proud, indeed, would the old man have been could he have foreseen that an Englishman who followed on his steps one hundred and sixteen years later would be shown at New Hailes, at Rasay, and at Dunvegan, “Dr. Johnson’s Chamber.” At Rasay is preserved his walking-stick—not the famous “piece of timber” which was destined for some museum, but was stolen or lost in Mull, but one which he had occasionally used. In his bedroom an engraving of him hangs on the wall. The china tea-set out of which he had drunk is preserved by a descendant of the laird who was his host. At Dunvegan his portrait is set up in a post of honour in the noble drawing-room of the famous old castle, and his autograph letter to Macleod of Macleod rests among the ancient memorials of that still more ancient family. That it is endorsed “Dr. Johnston’s Letter” may be twisted into a compliment. So popular was he that his very name was “Scottified.”
DR. JOHNSON’S BEDROOM, DUNVEGAN.
TRADITIONS OF JOHNSON.
In many places I found traditions of him still remaining—some, no doubt, true; others false. But whether false or true, by their vitality they show the deep mark which the man made as he passed along. In Glenmorison there are countryfolk who profess to know by the report of their forefathers the “clear rivulet” in “the narrow valley, not very flowery but sufficiently verdant,” where Johnson reposed on “a bank such as a writer of romance might have delighted to feign, and first conceived the thought of the narration” of his tour.[4] In a farmhouse on Loch Duich, just below the mountain which exhausted his patience and good-humour, and nearly exhausted his strength, I was told of the speech which he made as he reached the top of the pass. “He turned as he was beginning the descent, and said to the mountain, ‘Good-bye, Ma’am Rattachan, I hope never to see your face again.’”[5] From Rasay a friendly correspondent wrote to tell me how the great man had climbed up Dun Can, the highest mountain in the island, and had danced on the top. I have pointed out that it was Boswell and not Johnson who performed this feat, but the tradition, doubtless, will linger on. At Dunvegan Miss Macleod of Macleod, who remembers her grandmother, Johnson’s hostess, and her aunts, “the four daughters, who knew all the arts of southern elegance, and all the modes of English economy,”[6] has preserved some traditions more worthy of trust. “One day,” she said, “he had scolded the maid for not getting good peats, and had gone out in the rain to the stack to fetch in some himself.[7] He caught a bad cold. Lady Macleod went up to his room to see how he was, and found him in bed, with his wig turned inside out, and the wrong end foremost, serving the purpose of ‘a cap by night,’ like the stocking of Goldsmith’s Author. On her return to the drawing-room, she said, ‘I have often seen very plain people, but anything as ugly as Dr. Johnson, with his wig thus stuck on, I never have seen.’[8] She was (her granddaughter added) greatly pleased with his talk, for she had seen enough of the world to enjoy it; but her daughters, who were still quite girls, disliked him much, and called him a bear.”
MAM RATTACHAN.
At the inn at Broadford, sitting in the entrance-hall, I fell into talk with an elderly man, a retired exciseman, who lived close by. He, too, had his traditions of the Sassenach mohr. His father had known an old lady, blind of one eye, who was fond of telling how in her childhood, at the time of Johnson’s visit, she had been watching the dancing in that famous farmhouse of Corrichatachin, where Boswell got so drunk one night over the punch, and so penitent the next morning over a severe headache and the Epistle for the Twentieth Sunday after Trinity.[9] A large brass button on the coat-tail of one of the dancers had struck her in her eye as he whirled round and had so injured it that she lost the sight. My informant had a story also to tell of the learned minister, the Rev. Donald Macqueen, who accompanied Johnson in part of his tour. “A crofter seeing the two men pass, asked the minister who was his companion. Macqueen replied, ‘The man who made the English language.’ ‘Then he had very little to do,’ rejoined the crofter; meaning, according to the Gaelic idiom, that he might have been much better employed.” My friendly exciseman had known also an old lady who remembered Johnson coming to her father’s house in Mull. According to a custom once very common in the Highlands, though even in those days passing fast away, she had been sent for three or four years to a shepherd’s hut to be fostered. It was shortly after her return home that Johnson’s visit was paid. He did not hide his displeasure at the roughness which still clung to her. She had not forgotten, moreover, how he found fault with the large candles, rudely made of pieces of old cloth twisted round and dipped in tallow.[10] My acquaintance ended his talk by saying: “If Dr. Johnson had returned to Scotland after publishing his book, he would have got a crack on his skull.”
At Craignure, in the Isle of Mull, the landlord of the little inn had his story to tell of the untimely death of young Maclean of Col, that “amiable man,” who, while the pages of Johnson’s Journey to the Western Islands “were preparing to attest his virtues, perished in the passage between Ulva and Inch-Kenneth.”[11] My host’s great-grandmother, a Macquarrie of Ulva, on the night when the boat was upset, had been watching the cattle near the fatal shore. An old woman who was to have been her companion had failed her, so that she was alone. She saw nothing, and heard no cries. “A half-witted person,” my informant added, in a serious voice, “had warned one of the party not to go; but his warning was not heeded, and the man lost his life.”
